$Unique_ID{COW02627}
$Pretitle{357}
$Title{Nigeria
Chapter 2B.   Language}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Robert Rinehart}
$Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army}
$Subject{hausa
language
yoruba
fulani
ibo
ethnic
groups
nigeria
political
state}
$Date{1981}
$Log{Figure 15.*0262701.scf
Quranic Schools*0262702.scf
Hausa Religious Leaders*0262703.scf
}
Country:     Nigeria
Book:        Nigeria, A Country Study
Author:      Robert Rinehart
Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army
Date:        1981

Chapter 2B.   Language

     Of the four widely recognized language categories in Africa (each roughly
equivalent to Indo-European in scope), three-Afro-Asiatic, Niger-Kordofanian,
and Nilo-Saharan-are represented in Nigeria. Two major divisions-Chadic and
Semitic-comprehend the Afro-Asiatic languages of the land. The most important
Chadic tongue is Hausa, spoken as a native language by more than a fifth of
Nigeria's people and, according to one estimate, by another tenth as a second
language. (Still others may have some acquaintance with it as a lingua franca
in the north.) Of the perhaps ninety other Chadic languages spoken north of
the Niger-Benue valley, none had more than 200,000 speakers in 1963, and some
are spoken by very small numbers of people. Arabic, the only Semitic tongue in
Nigeria, is spoken by the Shuwa Arabs of the far northeast, and many other
Muslims, particularly clerics, are familiar with it to varying degrees.

     Two divisions of Nilo-Saharan-Saharan and Songhai-include a total of
three languages in Nigeria. The most important of these by far, subsumed under
Saharan, is Kanuri in the far northeast. Two tongues-Zarma and Dendi-subsumed
under Songhai are relatively unimportant in Nigeria.

     The western division of Niger-Kordofanian-Niger-Congo-comprehends the
remainder of Nigeria's languages. It in turn is subdivided into a number of
groups (families) of roughly the distinctiveness of the Romance and Germanic
branches of Indo-European. By far the greatest number of languages-more than
150-are subsumed in the Benue-Congo family, but of these only a few-Ibibio
(including the important Efik dialect), the closely related Anaang, and
Tiv-were spoken by more than 1 percent of the population. Several others-among
them Ejagham (Ekoi) and Kana (Ogoni)-were mother tongues of local importance.
The Kwa family subsumed fewer than fifty languages, but among them were the
second and third most important tongues in Nigeria-Yoruba and Ibo. In addition
eight to ten other languages were primary in specific states or otherwise of
some importance (see fig. 15). Nearly as many languages were included under
Adamawa as under Kwa, but none was of substantial significance. Of the three
other Niger-Congo families-Gur, Mande, and West Atlantic-represented in
Nigeria by one or two languages, only the West Atlantic tongue Fulfulde
(spoken by the Fulani) was significant.

     In addition to the indigenous languages, two others are important-English
and Nigerian Pidgin. English is the country's official language, used in
government in all formal situations (the 1979 Constitution specifies its use
in the National Assembly) and in much daily work at the higher levels,
particularly when those engaged in it have different mother tongues. It is
also employed in the upper reaches of the industrial and commercial world and
in much of the press and other media. In education English is introduced at
the primary school level and used exclusively in secondary schools and
universities. Nigerian Pidgin is characterized by a structure akin to that of
Nigerian languages, apparently those of the south, and by a lexicon that
borrows much from English. Unlike English, which is used in exchanges between
educated Nigerians, Pidgin is more likely to be used in southern ethnically
mixed urban areas among those with little or no formal education and by
southern Nigerians living in enclaves for strangers in northern cities and
towns.

     Even if they do not use English or Pidgin many Nigerians find themselves
in situations that demand from them a degree of bilingualism (or
multilingualism). In the north during the colonial era and well into the
postindependence period, Hausa had an official or (later) a quasi-official
status. It was used in regional government and was the language of instruction
in the schools, even among non-Hausa. This status and the general numerical,
economic, and political dominance of the Hausa led to its becoming widely
understood and used as a lingua franca, and some of the smaller groups have
given up their own languages for Hausa.

     In southern Nigeria other languages have become second tongues in the
cities and towns and in rural areas characterized by relations between two
or more ethnic groups. In southwestern urban centers (including Lagos, the
capital) numerically dominated by Yoruba, their tongue is commonly used by
others. Yoruba also seems to be widely accepted as a second language in less
urban areas, e.g., at rural markets and in churches on the eastern border of
Yorubaland, even when the Yoruba are in a minority.

     The situation in the southeast has been more complex. In the pre-colonial
era the languages of coastal groups (some quite small) that controlled trade
with groups in the hinterland became the second languages of the inland
peoples. When political and economic patterns changed under the British, these
second languages were either shed or changed. For a time when the Ibo were
dominant in the old Eastern Region, their language was of some importance as
a lingua franca, but the establishment of four states in that region in the
mid-1970s has altered the situation.

     From time to time politicians, scholars, and others have argued that
Nigeria ought to have an African language as its official tongue, if not alone
at least in addition to English. In general it has been suggested that such
a language would serve as both symbol of and means to national integration
and might permit a more rapid and widespread growth of literacy than does
English. The argument for a national African language has foundered on the
fact that a likely candidate would be identified with a specific regional and
ethnic entity to which others have been historically antagonistic. Practical
obstacles to making one indigenous language official are that the native
speakers of such a language would have a head start and that it would probably
be no easier for the speakers of Yoruba (a Kwa tongue), for instance, to learn
Hausa (a Chadic language) than it would be for either to learn English. In
these circumstances it is unlikely that an African language will be instituted
as an official national language in the near future. In the meantime the 1979
Constitution provides for the use of Hausa, Yoruba, and Ibo in the National
Assembly "when adequate arrangements have been made" (presumably for
simultaneous translation).

     English is not only the official language used in formal contexts between
equals and between superiors and subordinates in the federal government and
in larger business complexes (even when those involved may speak the same
indigenous language), but it is used in many unofficial situations. Linguist
Rebecca N. Agheyisi, writing in the late 1970s, notes that "it is now
possible to talk of a . . . social 'class' . . . comprising members of various
. . . linguistic groups for whom the 'public,' and indeed predominant, use
of English exists as one of their salient status symbols."

     Even if English is not used, Nigerians, at least in the south, interlard
the local language with English words. The quantity of English used in a
specific exchange varies, but even when it is quite high the speakers think
of themselves as using the local language and therefore engaged in informal
conversation or as making a formal one less so. Sometimes English words are
used simply to refer to a thing, action, or idea for which a local term does
not exist. In other contexts, however, the use of English-even in informal
conversation-is an assertion of status. When the language in use is an
indigenous one, English words such as "please" or "sorry" may be interspersed
to express respect or regret and "responsible" and "you're wasting time" to
make a view more formal or tougher. In urban areas, especially in the south,
this kind of usage is not restricted to those who are able to speak standard
English but may be found among laborers, foremen, and low-level clerical
personnel.

[See Figure 15.: Language Families and Major Ethnolinguistic Categories
Source: Based on information from Keir Hansford, John Bendor-Samuel, and
Ronald Stanford, "A Provisional Language Map of Nigeria," Savanna [Zaria], 5,
No. 2, December 1976, pp. 115-24 (and map).]

Ethnic Groups

     As sociologist Margaret Peil has put it, "Recording ethnicity in Nigeria
can be a complex business, since identification changes with circumstances and
there are many small groups which may or may not be classifiable into larger
units." Moreover the classification of peoples on the basis of their
objectively determined cultural similarities and differences may yield groups
or categories differing from those based on the way people subjectively
identify themselves and others in various situations (see Ethnic Relations and
Regionalism, this ch.).

     A number of the larger ethnolinguistic categories in Nigeria including
each of the three-Hausa, Yoruba, and Ibo-commonly thought of as the major
ethnic groups in Nigeria can furnish examples of discrepancies between the
objective and subjective dimensions of ethnicity and of changes in both. In
general the larger and more varied the ethnolinguistic category, the more
likely it is that there will be internal differences, whether based on
linguistic and cultural distinctions or different traditional or contemporary
political and economic interests. Smaller groups are by no means always
homogeneous or cohesive, but their sense of being overwhelmed by larger
entities has led to at least temporary solidarity in the face of attempts by
representatives of the numerically or politically dominant group to impose
its power and ways on them.

     It may be stressed that what is often attributed to ethnicity by foreign
observers and members of other ethnic groups is in fact a matter of ties of
kinship or ties to the lineage. One receives help from kin-typically of the
same ethnic group (mixed marriages occur but do not alter the general and more
easily perceptible picture)-or from the local community or neighborhood. From
the point of view of the outsider, however, the tie is ethnic-intricacies of
kinship and kin obligations are unknown or ignored.

Hausa

     Hausa society, old and new, has been characterized by the importance of
urban centers and well-developed political, religious, and craft
specialization, but the great majority of Hausa speakers, including many
urban dwellers with occupational specialties, are primarily farmers. With
some exceptions, however, the Hausa speakers outside the northern states are
traders, some combining mercantile activity with religious teaching and
preaching. An important feature of most Hausa polities since the early
nineteenth century has been the role of a ruling aristocracy of Fulani origin
(see Usman dan Fodio and the Fulani Emirates, ch. 1). Although integrated
in many ways into Hausa society, these aristocrats make a point of identifying
themselves as Fulani, hence the appellation Hausa-Fulani sometimes used for
the people of the emirates they have ruled. In the era before the
establishment of multiple states, Hausa (or Hausa-speaking Fulani) were also
administrative personnel among the Middle Belt peoples that formed a part of
the former Northern Region.

[See Quranic Schools: Like this outdoor classroom are still attended for
religious instruction by children of Muslim Nigerians. Courtesy INTERNATIONAL
LABOUR OFFICE]

     Although the Hausa have had substantial political, cultural, and
linguistic impact on much of the region north of the Niger-Benue valley,
their core area in Nigeria lies in Kano State, Sokoto State, and northern
Kaduna State. (Part of their historical core area lies in Niger.) In an
analysis of 1963 census data, geographers C.F. Claeson and S.O. Onakamaiya
found that 30 percent of those identified as Hausa were concentrated in Kano
division (the bulk of present-day Kano State); 23.6 percent were to be found
in Sokoto division (much of Sokoto State), and 15.1 percent in Katsina
division (roughly the northern half of Kaduna State). From 0.1 to 9.9 percent
of Hausa were found in other divisions of the old Northern Region. The data
do not distinguish between those Fulani who constituted integral parts of the
old Hausa emirates (the rulers and the fully sedentary) and those who were
less tightly bound to them and to the other peoples, e.g., the Kanuri, among
whom they lived (the nomadic or cattle Fulani). Nevertheless the pattern of
concentration is similar to that of the Hausa: 26.9 percent of Fulani lived
in Kano division, and 14.1 percent lived in Katsina; despite the historical
importance in Sokoto of the descendants of the Fulani-led jihad of the
nineteenth century, less than 10 percent of Fulani lived in Sokoto division
in 1963.

     So culturally varied and geographically dispersed have the Hausa become
in the course of a long and complex history that many specialists in Hausa
studies have argued that Hausa is a linguistic term, not an ethnic one.
Dispersal and adaptation to a range of physical and human environments have
been one source of intra-Hausa differences. Another has been their
assimilative tendency-on the one hand diverse peoples have become Hausa; on
the other their diversity has contributed to local variation. Historically
non-Hausa have been absorbed into Hausa society and polity at all levels of
the social scale from rulership to slavery.

     Regional variations aside, anthropologist Jerome Barkow has suggested
that it is useful to examine Hausa communities and individuals in terms of
three dimensions-"the depth of Islamic influence, the amount of status and
power, and degree of urbanization." Each of these dimensions is perceived
as a hierarchy by the Hausa. With some exceptions (the people called
Magazuwa), Hausa are Muslims, and their adherence to Islam is important to
their conception of themselves. Nevertheless Hausa vary in the nature and
depth of their Islamic belief and practice and in the extent to which
non-Islamic belief and practice persist. The more profound the influence of
Islam (or at least the deeper it is reputed to be), the higher the standing
of the group. Within Islam, another source of variation and, at times,
division is the adherence of segments of Hausa-Fulani society to different
Islamic brotherhoods (see Islam, this ch.).

[See Hausa Religious Leaders: Surrounded by young children in Sokoto State
Courtesy WORLD BANK PHOTO (Yosef Hadar)]

     Until the 1960s (with some modifications) Hausa societies and polities
distinguished between rulers (or chiefs) and administrators (or officeholders)
on the one hand and commoners (or subjects) on the other. In general,
rulership and the holding of high offices were reserved to dynastic and noble
lineages including clerical lineages, members of which were entitled to hold
priestly and judicial offices. Members of several noble lineages competed for
titled offices, and in some emirates several royal lineages vied for the
rulership. Not every member of a royal or noble lineage held office therefore,
but all were eligible. The tasks of ruling and governing were traditionally
more highly valued than any other.

     The center of most emirates was a city (or large town) peopled in part
by persons at the highest levels of government, by important religious
figures, and craft specialists of various kinds as well as by farmers and
traders. Residence in large urban areas was more highly valued than that in
small towns, and urban-dwelling Hausa had greater prestige than those living
in villages or hamlets. Members of noble lineages often held fiefs in rural
areas, but they did not live there.

     In the Fulani-dominated Hausa emirates the descendants of Usman dan
Fodio and his followers in the jihad of the early nineteenth century were,
until the mid-1960s at least, at the apex of the three hierarchies-as rulers,
devout Muslims, and urbanites. Although members of the Fulani upper stratum
have become integral parts of Hausa society and often speak Hausa as a first
language, they have tended to define themselves as Fulani, and aspects of
their lives and religious organization and practice differed from that of
most Hausa. Not all Fulani have entered Hausa society at this high level.
Some so-called cattle Fulani, having lost their means of livelihood, have
become fully sedentary and Islamized. Such persons are typically villagers
and lack the intensive commitment to and knowledge of Islam said to be
characteristic of the ruling Fulani.

     Over the centuries the Hausa have incorporated other peoples who have
generally entered Hausa society at lower levels, particularly if they were
not Muslims at the time of incorporation and continued to live in a rural
milieu. Although these people have become Hausa in language and to a
considerable extent in culture and religion, they may retain distinguishing
subgroup names because they are perceived as newcomers by the main body of
Hausa. Sometimes the original ethnic identification is retained as a marker
of special status, as among those Kanuri (known to the Hausa as Beriberi)
who have long dwelt among the Hausa but have an old Islamic tradition of
their own.

     Communities of people commonly called Maguzawa (there are other names
for them), presumably remnants of pre-Islamic Hausa and sharing language and
many aspects of culture with Muslim Hausa, are often seen as non-Hausa by
Muslim villagers for whom adherence to Islam is essential to Hausa identity.
In this view Maguzawa become Hausa when they accept Islam and give up
practices such as ritual beer drinking that distinguish them from proper
Hausa.

     In addition to distinctions between old and new Hausa, ruling (largely
Fulani) and commoner Hausa, and Muslim and pagan Hausa, there are local and
regional differences of which the Hausa are aware. The Hausa and their Fulani
rulers were organized in separate states (emirates) which, although
historically linked, had their own interests and concerns.

     Despite these differences, under the pressures of national politics in
the pre- and post-independence eras and spurred by promoters of ethnicity, the
Hausa and their Fulani rulers came to see themselves and were perceived as
an ethnic group, although for some Hausa-Fulani and many southern Nigerians,
the relevant political category was northern Nigerians or northern Muslims.
In a quite different context (that of southern towns) many persons of diverse
enough origin to be differentiated in the north became simply Hausa. That
identification (and ethnic unity) was stimulated by the exigencies of the
role of these people as cattle or kola nut traders and the need to maintain
their economic status.

     There were actual and potential cleavages-religious, subethnic,
generational, and others-among Hausa speakers even when Hausa solidarity
seemed to be at its greatest in the 1950s and 1960s. Changes since the end
of the civil war and especially since the mid-1970s have introduced a new
set of factors affecting intraethnic and interethnic relations. One such
change is the establishment of three largely autonomous states encompassing
the core Hausa area. Hausa in a particular state may well have interests and
concerns different from those of other Hausa. Further, the conversion of
Hausa elsewhere from the representatives of a politically and culturally
dominant category into a plurality at best-in Bauchi State-and into a minority
in other states is bound to change their perception of themselves and the
way others in these states see them (see Ethnic Relations and Regionalism,
this ch.). A second change is the increased official emphasis on secular
education among a people for whom Islamic learning has had great prestige and
secular learning has been suspect. Aside from the possibility of conflict
there is the potential for the emergence of alternative criteria for status.
Finally, although political and administrative roles at the higher levels
continue to be valued, the quasi-monopoly on those roles in the Fulani-ruled
emirates have gradually given way to positions in the new federal and state
system for which qualified Hausa compete. Just as important, the significance
in Nigeria's economy of private entrepreneurs has given Hausa businessmen who
do well a status higher than that which accrued to them in the traditional
system. These changes in the patterns of status and power among the Hausa
may have been important consequences for the functioning of Hausa as an
ethnic group (see The Social Order: Elites and Social Stratification, this
ch.).

Yoruba

     Yorubaland covers a range of geographic zones encompassing Oyo, Ogun,
Ondo, and Lagos states and extending east to western Bendel State and north
to a substantial portion of Kwara State. There are also Yoruba (calling
themselves Ife) in the Benin Republic and in Togo. Yoruba adaptations to
variable ecological conditions have entailed the development of economies
ranging from fishing to cocoa cultivation to food crop farming (see
Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries, ch. 3).

     The history of Yorubaland has been conducive to a good deal of variation
among sections of the Yoruba with respect to the political, economic, and
cultural significance of patrilineages (see Glossary), kingship,
chieftainship, military leaders and traders, and associations such as title
and secret societies and age groups. All of these underwent some degree of
change in function and in their relation to each other in the eighteenth
and nineteenth centuries as a consequence of the rise and fall of large
states, the varying importance of the slave trade and other commerce, the
formation of large towns, and the imposition of colonial rule. For example
although towns were features of some of the larger kingdoms at an earlier
time, warfare in the latter half of the eighteenth and the nineteenth
centuries relating to control over trade led to the formation of new towns
and the growth of some old ones, and new forms of social and political
organization emerged. In this period the political if not the ritual role
of Yoruba kings diminished, and military leaders (many of whom were traders
with private armies) became more important. The colonial regime, seeking
to rule through existing administrative machinery, fastened on the kingship
as the appropriate source of authority, thus rejuvenating an office that had
declined in importance (see Yoruba Kingdoms, ch. 1).

     At no point have the Yoruba been included in a single polity, although
some of the larger kingdoms have exercised a degree of hegemony over some
of the smaller political entities from time to time. Until the mid-nineteenth
century when the term Yoruba first came to be widely applied to the people
of this area, they referred to themselves as members of smaller groups that
corresponded roughly to or had their origins in kingdoms or other political
entities. These are now considered subgroups (there are more than twenty of
them in Nigeria) and are still relevant to intra-Yoruba identification and
relations. Cutting across these differences are religious ones. In the
nineteenth century Islam from the north and Christianity from the south
began to affect the Yoruba. One kingdom, Ilorin, came under the control of
a Muslim Fulani dynasty in the early 1820s, but Yoruba had been influenced
by Islam even earlier. Southern Yoruba were perhaps the first people to
feel the impact of Christian missionaries, an impact furthered by the return
to Nigeria of freed Yoruba slaves who had been converted. By the mid-twentieth
century, Yoruba were adherents of a wide variety of Christian groups (see
Religious Life, this ch.).

     Despite the significance of differences and divisions among the Yoruba,
some of them seem to have developed a Yoruba-wide ethnic consciousness
relatively early. Having had access to economic and educational resources in
the nineteenth century, many Yoruba became aware of groups akin in language
and culture to their own. Identification with the larger group became
significant as peoples of quite different languages and cultures became
competitors for elite status. In other situations Yoruba have identified
with a particular community or subgroup, and Yoruba of one subgroup may have
a stereotype of another such group as pejorative as any they have of
non-Yoruba. Even these subgroups, however, have not been cohesive units
in all circumstances. Particular political, economic, and religious
interest groups engaged in a variety of alliances and conflicts among the
Yoruba as a whole or in specific subgroups. In short, Yoruba solidarity
has been intermittent, responding to changes in circumstances (see Ethnic
Relations and Regionalism, this ch.).

Ibo

     The Ibo, more fragmented in their precolonial political organization
than the Hausa or Yoruba, comprise more than 200 named subgroups, each
corresponding to what had formerly been the maximum political unit. In many
cases these subgroups may constitute clusters of culturally and linguistically
related communities, but these were not politically cohesive. The typical
maximum political entity was the village group, comprising from a handful of
villages to more than thirty. In a few cases a single village was completely
autonomous. A component of a village group sometimes had as many as 2,000
inhabitants, but most villages were smaller. Large towns comparable to those
of the Yoruba or Hausa were rare and occurred, as in the case of Onitsha on
the east bank of the Niger River, when location and trade allowed for it.

     In principle, decisions for most village groups were made by elders
representing the component villages, and they were expected to come to a
decision by consensus. Most decisions-legislative, judicial, and
executive-affecting a village were made by its own male members, again by
consensus. Some men had more influence than others, however, by virtue of
varying combinations of seniority, speaking ability, and prestige-the last
acquired by the accumulation of wealth and its appropriate expenditure.
With some exceptions, leadership and influence, however achieved, could not
be converted into institutionalized authority or directly inherited. In the
few cases in which a form of kingship had emerged (usually as a consequence
of the influence of adjacent peoples), the king's authority was limited.

     Ibo were not quite so widely distributed through a range of geographic
zones as were Yoruba, but there was enough local geographic variation to call
for different adaptations in settlement patterns. In addition Ibo subgroups
were variably affected by neighboring peoples. Most Ibo were subsistence
cultivators, but there were craft specialists, and by the nineteenth century
many were involved in the slave trade as predators and prey. Others engaged in
the production and sale of palm oil and palm kernels. Warfare between Ibo
groups was common. The impact of direct European control was later than among
the Yoruba but was swift when it came. Christian missionaries arrived in the
mid-nineteenth century in some Ibo areas, later in others, and they had
considerable effect, particularly as the purveyors of formal education.
(Although there are a few Ibo Muslims and even Muslim communities, Islam by
contrast has not been important in southeastern Nigeria.)

     The variation in aspects of culture and social organization among the Ibo
owing to ecological and historical circumstances was compounded by their
political fragmentation. The lack of an authoritative center (or centers) was
conducive to such differences, even if it did not cause them. The colonial
regime, seeking authorities through which to rule, found the Ibo system
frustrating and imposed upon it administrative institutions incompatible with
local forms. At the same time, the regime and the impact of education led to
the rise of an Ibo consciousness, as did the Ibo diaspora. Taking advantage of
their education and manual skills and motivated by the shortage of land in
their core area and by an apparent propensity for risk taking, Ibo moved into
many areas in northern Nigeria where they worked as unskilled and skilled
workers, e.g., carpenters, traders, clerks, and administrative personnel.
Their experience in what was to them an alien country contributed to a sense
of ethnic identity. Even so, a number of observers have indicated that many
Ibo communities, particularly in the northern and eastern peripheries of the
core, did not begin to think of themselves as Ibo until well after World War
II. The experience of the civil war and the concomitant retreat of Ibo to
southeastern Nigeria enhanced their self-consciousness, but it did not
extinguish internal differences.

     As among other large ethnic categories, Ibo ethnic identity is
situationally relative. Thus in most Ibo communities, Ibo migrants from other
subgroups are likely to be treated as "strangers," often marked by continuing
dialectical differences, who live in a particular part of the village and
engage in an occupation different from that of the community. Subgroup warfare
ended in the colonial era, but village group competition in other spheres has
not. In the wider context of the new states, Anambra and Imo, where most
people are Ibo, the distinction becomes a regional one. For example in Anambra
State, northern Ibo now complain that southern Ibo are monopolizing state
jobs, apparently because the southerners had earlier and more extensive access
to educational opportunities that have made them eligible.

Other Major Groups

     In addition to the Hausa, Yoruba, and Ibo are a number of groups-perhaps
a dozen-that in many smaller African states would constitute a substantial
portion of the population (see table 3, Appendix). In Nigeria, however, the
largest of these, the Fulani, makes up less than 10 percent of the total.
Moreover they are so differentiated and dispersed that it is difficult to
conceive of Fulani cohesiveness under modern circumstances. The Muslim Fulani
of the ruling stratum of the northern emirates have had their differences even
in the era of greatest solidarity. Perhaps the chief concern shared by members
of this segment of the Fulani is for the preservation of their status and some
of their power in the face of change (see The Social Order: Elites and Social
Stratification, this ch.). The cattle Fulani, widely distributed through
northern Nigeria (and farther south to some extent), have always been
minorities in larger societies, interacting with local sedentary populations,
sometimes converting to Islam, but remaining only tangentially related to the
whole. Their primary focus has been on their cattle and on the small group
of related families that moves with the herd. For the time being they remain
outside the major social, economic, and political currents of modern Nigeria.

     After the Fulani, the next largest category comprises the Kanuri, little
more than 4 percent of the population in 1963. Although there are Kanuri in
many towns, especially in the north and in Chad and Niger, the bulk live in
Borno State, most of them in Bornu emirate. Whatever the changes that have
taken place in the status and workings of the emirate, the Kanuri have a
sense of their identity that has been shaped and is symbolized by their
connection with a 1,000-year-old state. That state was able to resist Fulani
dominance in the nineteenth century, although the ancient ruling dynasty gave
way to another ruling group stemming from Kanem (present-day Niger), which had
been the point of origin of the people who became the Kanuri. The sense of
continuity persisted, however.

     The remaining major categories vary considerably in language and culture
and in their historical experience. Trading and raiding as well as movement
and mixture marked the experience of most Nigerian peoples long before the
colonial era. The character of those processes changed with the arrival of
Europeans on the coast-for example, many slaves moved south instead of
north-and changed again with the end of the slave trade and the imposition of
British control. All Nigerians were affected by the slave trade, by the
expansion and contraction of northern Muslim states, and the incursion of
European agents, whether traders, colonial authorities or missionaries, but
the impact differed from group to group. The histories, some fragmentary, some
better established, of present-day ethnic categories suggest how often they
are composites of people of differing origin, some of which became part of the
amalgam within the last century or two-or only after the colonial authorities
found it useful to have them so.

     Some Nigerians, such as the Ijaw (Ijo), speak not just dialects of the
same language but separate (if closely related) tongues. Nevertheless they
accept the same ethnic designation, at least in some contexts. However, the
Anaang, culturally related to the Ibibio and speaking a language very much
like theirs, insist on a separate designation and on some accounts look down
on the Ibibio. Despite their acceptance of a common designation, the Ijaw are
quite varied. Some were deeply engaged as slavers and traders; others were
objects of slave raids. This was also true of the Ibibio, and one segment of
them-the Efik-were so differentiated by virtue of their experience as slavers
and traders and by their later (but relatively early) interaction with
missionaries that they have retained a separate identity. The Efik dialect of
Ibibio became widespread by virtue of its use in trade and for an early
translation of the Bible, and they were among the first southeastern Nigerians
to become professionals and administrators.

     The Ijaw, the Ibibio, and the Idoma (among others) were characterized not
only by cultural diversity but by political fragmentation. The precise nature
of their political arrangements varied but none encompassed large numbers in a
single state. The Nupe and the Edo (associated with Benin) were marked by a
centralized political order that comprehended some (but never all) of the
ethnic category. But the fact of state organization should not obscure the
fact that the state also included other peoples. Among the Nupe, the ruling
dynasty by the time the Europeans arrived was of Fulani origin, although it
had taken on many Nupe characteristics.

     In many respects the most homogeneous group, which is very different from
all but one or two other (much smaller groups) in Nigeria are the Tiv whose
cultural affinities seem to be farther south. Many Nigerian peoples have
unileal descent groups, usually patrilineages as one element-of varying
importance-in their sociopolitical systems, but a segmentary lineage system
pervaded Tiv society and ordered Tiv social, political, legal, religious, and
economic life.

     Given their indigenous system, they lacked an overarching authority
adaptable to the requirements of colonial rule, and they tended to
resist-sometimes violently-the imposition of such rule through the Northern
Region and its Hausa and Fulani agents. Their recalcitrance led to their
isolation. They did, however adapt to the colonial economy as producers of
food and other crops for the market, as soldiers, and in other capacities.
Since World War II increasing numbers have become Christians and have acquired
a Western education, and these changes have led to a degree of differentiation
not hitherto characteristic of them. In state politics they are no longer a
pagan minority imposed upon by politically dominant Muslims but a plurality of
not a majority in Benue State, thus changing conditions for ethnic solidarity.